we are now the primary customer, buying our own cars with our own money, for our own pleasure.<\/em> We have more disposable income than ever: in the US, women now own 60 per cent of private wealth, and you can bet your bottom dollar a similar stat is heading here.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo, why do women still find the car-buying experience such a negative one?<\/strong> According to a recent survey by Auto Trader, 94 per cent of women don\u2019t trust dealerships, 83 per cent don\u2019t trust manufacturers, and 40 per cent \u2018dread\u2019 the buying process. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThankfully, all is not lost. The cars themselves are forcing changes. Petrol and diesel-powered sports models are disappearing, replaced by hybrid and pure electric vehicles. <\/em>The days of adverts that show women splayed across the bonnet of a V8 sports car are fading. Instead, we are embracing electric cars, which are more focused on lifestyle than performance. The emphasis is not on horsepower any more, but sustainability.<\/em> Also, the conversation is shifting from engineering to interiors, as the car evolves into \u2018the third space\u2019, after the office and home, in which to hold our conference calls, or help the kids with their homework.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe car industry knows it must respond to the female consumer<\/em>, who, right now, feels utterly disenfranchised. If it doesn\u2019t, women will take their hard-earned cash away from dealers and buy online<\/em>. They\u2019ll be swayed by social platforms, too<\/em>, where the likes of Google and Uber, who are both trialing their own autonomous cars, will reach them first.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn reality, our wish list is not dissimilar to men\u2019s. Cost, space, practicality and safety all feature high on the demands of both genders<\/strong>, but we want to be respected and recognized for our spending power, not patronized. We want to see car reviews done by women, by people like us, and we want to buy from companies that share our values and take diversity seriously themselves. We\u2019d also like to see the stories that are told around cars brought in line with how we live, rather than in the dry way they\u2019ve always been told in car mags aimed at men.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI hope that in five years\u2019 time, women will talk about cars as they do about fashion, health or anything else. And no dealer will say \u2018I expect you\u2019ll want to check with your husband\u2019 ever again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nSimilarly to looking into the vehicle experience of POC, I wanted to find an article that discussed the experiences that women had with automobiles. I found several articles explaining the relationship between gender and automobiles, from how they are marketed, to common stereotypes, to what working in industry is like, but this article in particular stood out because it, to a slight degree, addressed the idea of autonomous vehicles and identified a potential direction in which they may be marketed towards women. I think the statistics in this article are important to note too because it gives us more context on the end users we are probably going to wind up working with, and knowing that the new primary consumer of vehicles are women will be something we will have to consider when approaching this project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nClaire, M. (2021, February 25). Cars and sexism: Why the industry needs to make cars for women<\/em>. Marie Claire. Retrieved September 26, 2021, from https:\/\/www.marieclaire.co.uk\/life\/work\/cars-650207.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Author: Marie Claire Date: 04\/04\/2019 Publisher: Marie Claire Link: https:\/\/www.marieclaire.co.uk\/life\/work\/cars-650207 Sadly, we know the entire car industry \u2013 from the cars themselves, to marketing, dealerships, magazines and motor shows \u2013 is still a male-biased environment, where women and unconfident buyers are given little support and guidance. One might, at a stretch, understand this approach if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":8388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-focus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8389,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8387\/revisions\/8389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}